The Republic Beyond Ritual

On the morning of January 26, the Republic performs itself with disciplined confidence. The parade advances in immaculate order, tableaux narrate unity through colour and choreography, and the Constitution is invoked with ceremonial gravity. For a few hours, the Republic appears settled—assured of its purpose and secure in its democratic inheritance.

But the Republic was never meant to be admired only on ceremonial mornings.

Republic Day, taken seriously, is not a festival of reassurance. It is an annual reckoning. It asks whether the Constitution—adopted not for admiration but for application—continues to guide public conduct once the pageantry recedes and ordinary governance resumes.

The Indian Constitution did not merely replace colonial authority with indigenous rule. It attempted something far more demanding: the transformation of subjects into citizens. The framers were under no illusion that this transition would be automatic. It was to be sustained through institutional discipline, civic responsibility, and what Dr B.R. Ambedkar described as constitutional morality. Seventy-five years later, that transition remains incomplete.

The Republic was conceived not only as a political arrangement, but as a moral commitment. Its architects understood that electoral democracy alone could not guarantee justice, dignity, or social cohesion. Ambedkar’s insistence on constitutional morality was not rhetorical flourish; it was a safeguard. Democracies, he warned, do not usually collapse through sudden rupture. They weaken when constitutional restraint yields to expediency.

The question confronting India today is therefore not whether it possesses a Constitution, but whether the Republic continues to submit itself to constitutional discipline.

Public discourse reveals an increasingly selective engagement with constitutional values. Liberty is asserted loudly, equality is acknowledged cautiously, and fraternity—the most demanding and least convenient of the constitutional ideals—is often overlooked. Yet the Preamble did not offer these as detachable aspirations. They were intended to function together, or not at all.

Liberty, as envisioned by the Constitution, was never synonymous with unregulated freedom. It was liberty bounded by law, accountability, and mutual respect. Freedom of expression was protected precisely because dissent was recognised as essential to democratic vitality, not as a threat to national unity. A confident Republic does not fear dissent; it regulates it through constitutional means rather than moral suspicion. When liberty is exercised without responsibility—or restrained without justification—it ceases to be constitutional and becomes arbitrary.

Equality, too, was not conceived as mere formal sameness. It was designed as a corrective principle—addressing entrenched disadvantage through affirmative action, legal safeguards, and institutional reform. The Republic’s commitment to equality demands sustained attention to those who remain at the margins of economic opportunity, social security, and political representation. Equality delayed, diluted, or selectively applied weakens the credibility of the constitutional promise.

Fraternity remains the Republic’s most fragile ideal. Ambedkar described it as the sense of common belonging without which liberty and equality cannot endure. In an era of heightened political mobilisation and assertive identities, sustaining fraternity becomes both more difficult and more necessary. Without it, the Republic risks becoming a field of competing claims rather than a shared constitutional enterprise. When fraternity weakens, disagreement turns existential and difference is mistaken for disloyalty.

Republic Day, then, is less a celebration of achievement than an audit of unresolved commitments.

This challenge is neither abstract nor confined to metropolitan centres. In regions such as the Northeast—historically distant from the corridors of power and often engaging the Republic through negotiation rather than certainty—the Constitution has carried particular significance. It has functioned not merely as a charter of rights, but as a framework for accommodation in a region where democracy has often been shaped through dialogue rather than inheritance. Federalism, cultural recognition, and consultative governance have served as constitutional instruments of integration, not concessions granted by benevolence. The durability of Indian federalism lies not in uniformity, but in its capacity to integrate difference without weakening national cohesion.

When constitutional processes weaken, it is often these peripheral regions that experience the strain first—through administrative centralisation, delayed justice, or the erosion of consultative governance. The health of the Republic must therefore be assessed not only by grand national narratives, but by how equitably constitutional protections are experienced across its diverse geography.

None of this is to deny the Republic’s substantial achievements. India has sustained regular elections under conditions of extraordinary complexity. Democratic participation has expanded, judicial review has frequently acted as a corrective force, and civil society—despite pressures—continues to engage the public sphere. These are not minor accomplishments.

But constitutional democracy does not survive on historical success alone. It endures through daily adherence to norms: respect for institutions, tolerance of disagreement, and restraint in the exercise of power. The Republic is rarely weakened by dramatic rupture; it is tested instead by the gradual relaxation of constitutional discipline—through normalised exceptions, blurred boundaries, and diminished accountability.

One such test is the narrowing space for reasoned disagreement. The Constitution does not merely permit dissent; it protects it as a democratic necessity. A Republic that lacks the confidence to absorb criticism risks undermining its own foundations. Democratic strength lies not in unanimity, but in the capacity to manage disagreement without coercion or delegitimisation.

Another risk lies in allowing symbolism to outpace outcomes. Rituals have their place in nation-building, but symbolism cannot substitute for governance that delivers. Republic Day ceremonies derive meaning only when accompanied by tangible progress—in education, healthcare, employment, environmental protection, and access to justice. These remain the truest measures of constitutional governance.

Citizens, too, bear responsibility for sustaining the Republic. The Constitution grants rights generously, but it also imposes duties—often overlooked and rarely debated. Civic responsibility cannot be outsourced entirely to institutions. Democratic maturity requires citizens to demand accountability while practising restraint, to assert freedom while recognising the freedoms of others.

Education is central to this responsibility. Constitutional literacy is not the memorisation of articles or amendments; it is an understanding of the spirit that animates them. A Republic cannot endure if its citizens encounter the Constitution only during ceremonial observance, rather than as a living framework guiding everyday conduct.

As India asserts itself on the global stage—as a major economy, a strategic actor, and the world’s largest democracy—the internal health of its Republic assumes heightened significance. Global influence ultimately rests on domestic legitimacy. A Republic that honours its Constitution in practice commands greater moral authority than one that celebrates it only in rhetoric.

Republic Day, therefore, must be reclaimed from routine observance and restored to serious reflection. It invites necessary questions: Are institutions being strengthened or personalised? Is power exercised with constitutional restraint? Are citizens treated as participants in governance or merely as spectators of authority?

The Republic does not collapse in a single moment. It weakens when constitutional vigilance gives way to complacency. Its survival depends not on uniform agreement, but on a shared commitment to democratic procedures—even when outcomes are inconvenient.

When the parade ends and the flags are lowered, the Republic’s real work begins—in courtrooms and classrooms, in legislatures and local councils, in newsrooms and neighbourhoods. The Constitution waits there, not as an ornament of statehood, but as a discipline of governance.

To honour the Republic is not merely to salute it once a year. It is to insist—quietly and persistently—that power remain accountable, liberty remain inclusive, and fraternity remain possible.

That, ultimately, is what the Constitution demands—not as a moment of sentiment, but as a discipline of nationhood, long after the rituals are over.